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What You Need to Know about "Sound of Freedom"
A blockbuster seems to have come out of nowhere - but it hasn't. How a based-on-a-true-story movie shelved in 2018 has become a conspiracy touchstone.
TW: discussions of child sexual abuse, hysteria, and moral panic.
A good summary may be found here.
The bedrock
There is currently a moral panic sweeping the United States. It had been building in crescendo for a number of years and this film shows the culmination of years of work - activists and politicians and concerned citizens rallying around a simple idea: children are a risk.
However, their concern is at best misplaced and at worst being used against them. It's not entirely wrong to be concerned about sexual abuse and the exploration of children. The numbers passed around appear terrifying. The English-speaking world has seen the growth of grassroots organizations like the UK's "pedo hunters" and the (popular in the 80s) Faye Yeager's Children's Underground.
What are the numbers?
The film has grossed $40 million at the box office.
A report from the Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative states that 67 percent of children trafficked are between the ages of 15 and 17 - while the film proposes that idea those trafficked are usually much younger. The 2020 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons shows that 50 per cent of detected victims in 2018 were trafficked for sexual exploitation, 38 per cent were exploited for forced labour, six per cent were subjected to forced criminal activity, while one per cent were coerced into begging and smaller numbers into forced marriages, organ removal, and other purposes. The detected forms of exploitation vary widely across different subregions. The share of detected victims trafficked for forced labour has steadily increased for more than a decade; most of these are boys.
The U.S. State Department has reported that traffickers transport 600,000 to 800,000 people across international borders each year, and less 50 percent of these victims are minors.
Child trafficking victims often know and trust their traffickers, according to Teresa Huizar, CEO of the National Children's Alliance. Some victims are throwaway kids who are forced to trade sex for food and shelter, often with the trafficker calling themselves their boyfriend or girlfriend. Research shows that many child trafficking victims are LGBTQ or gender nonconforming youth who have been forced into the sex trade by someone close to them. The movie suggests that abductions occur more frequently in public places such as parking lots and playgrounds, and that young children are at a greater risk from strangers then people they know.
What is OUR?
Operation Underground Railroad (OUR), founded in Utah in 2013, gained popularity on social media due to its focus on rescuing innocent children. It has gained attention from parenting groups, lifestyle influencers, and fitness enthusiasts due to its muscular approach. OUR says on its website and social media it has rescued and supported “thousands of survivors in 28 countries and 26 U.S. states,” including 3,000 around the world in 2019 alone. The charity’s annual report said it took in more than $21 million in donations for that year. They popularised raids of supposed trafficking by filming them and inviting journalists, influencers, and even Glenn Beck.
What does a raid look like? Well, in 2014 a writer joined OUR on one of their raids. Here is an except:
Ballard and I are both Mormon... My dad, who loved my work, kept a few cards with my blog information in his wallet. [This is] how Ballard knew I was a writer.
When Ballard called, I didn’t ask many questions. I didn’t wonder why he thought it was appropriate for me—the writer of a mommy blog—to chronicle anti-trafficking work. At the time, I was a 28-year-old stay-at-home mother in Utah. I was lonely and grieving: My dad, my best friend, had died not long before. As I changed diapers, managed tantrums, and sat in the playground, I felt unmoored from my past and unsure about my future. I suppose, in my grief and my search for meaning, I wanted him to be called by God, because maybe that meant finally, I was too.
...
I was told Ballard’s team coordinated with local authorities who were too overwhelmed or ill-equipped to do this work on their own. Members of the OUR jump team found people willing to traffic kids and set up a date to “party” with however many kids they could provide, the more the better. The authorities were told where and when the party was happening. When they arrived, the girls would be sent outside, where I would be with them, while Ballard and the traffickers would stay inside. The police planned to wait outside until the OUR team had undercover footage of a trafficker accepting upfront cash for sex with the kids. After the cash changed hands, Ballard would give a signal, and the authorities would rush the house to make arrests. They would be armed.
The issue - expect note that OUR creates a demand for child sexual abuse victims where care is not provided and entrapment is common. In 2015 a tech-investor paid to fund a raid and streamed it live.
Who is the man behind this? His name is Tim Ballard. As Operation Underground Railroad’s founder and president he sees this as his Godly mission to save the children.
What happens to the children?
Most of the children trafficked in OUR stings are first-time; meaning that OUR may create the demand for a crime it seeks to stamp out. OUR also promotes, there is little evidence of placement, a private adoption agency OUR also claims to run. Additionally, none of these children were kidnapped by strangers on the raid the writer attended - they were trafficked by family members or people they knew.
What does trafficking really look like?
Young women between 15 and 18 are often lured by a man who promises romance but forces them to do sex work due to his control over their immigration status, legal documents, and threats of harming their family.
What is the "true story"?
Well, in a word, it's not true at all.
The film's website acknowledged altering Ballard's biography and “took creative liberties in depicting the different methods of child trafficking.”
The film's central plot point, that of a brother and sister lured to a photo shoot in Honduras, is not an event that Ballard has claimed actually happened. Ballard stated that "Some things are definitely overreported". He did not go into the jungle by himself to rescue a little girl nor did he kill a man to rescue the child. Operation Triple Take, an island rescue, saved both minors and adults from labor trafficking, with the film portraying victims as children. Ballard's team claimed to have rescued 123 individuals at two locations. Operation Triple Take accounted for 53 individuals.
How are people seeing for free?
At the end of the film, there is a call to action. A QR code appears and promotes viewers to "pay it forward" pre-buying tickets so that others may see the vital message of the film for free.
Why was this film shelved in 2019?
While online rumours say 2019 - the film was completed in 2018. It was shelved because it was produced by 20th Century Fox, which then was bought by Disney; when this occurred the project was shelved. Then the release was delayed by the pandemic.
Why does your mom/dad/grandparent/uncle know about this movie and not you?
It is being heavily marketed on Facebook and tictok by age, religious and political affiliation, and region. The key points are Christian, rural, and older - the average age of the viewer is above fifty and appears to be common among white, Black, and minority Christan groups.
Why is Ballad not CEO anymore?
After an internal investigation OUR Ballad stepped down in 2023. Aletter claims that an OUR employee who accompanied Ballard on an undercover operation abroad filed a complaint against him with OUR’s human resources department after the trip, and that a followup investigation culminated in his resignation.
The Producers
Eduardo Verastegui, a Mexican soap opera actor and Catholic activist, has expressed interest in running for Mexico's 2024 presidential election. Support from deep right groups and Spanish deep and alt-right groups, including Vox, is viewed as an infiltration attempt by radical right-wing groups. Verastegui's hardcore homophobia and links to pedophilia have been criticized.
He is using the film to run a complex, multi-state presidential campaign over the summer.
Jim Caviezel, as seen here, discusses the Sound of Freedom, transitioning from that to rescuing children from underground bunkers (DUMS) run by the elites, how the elites extract and consume adrenaline from terrorized children, and how these elites are in the entertainment industry and how "there will be no mercy for them."
Additional Resources
The Boston Globe, 2023 "America's Summer of Fake Savours"
The Washinton Post, 2016, "Hunting for sex traffickers abroad by posing as johns"
Mormon Stories, 2020 "Investigating Tim Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad"
The Atlantic, 2021 "THE GREAT (FAKE) CHILD-SEX-TRAFFICKING EPIDEMIC"
Ministry Watch, 2023 "“Sound of Freedom” Doesn’t Tell True Story of Operation Underground Railroad"
Salt Lake City Weekly, 2021 "UTAH'S OPERATION UNDERGROUND RAILROAD DONATIONS LOOK ODD."
FOX13 Salt Lake, 2020 "Anti-human trafficking group Operation Underground Railroad under criminal investigation by Utah prosecutor"
VICE, 2020 "A Famed Anti-Sex Trafficking Group Has a Problem With the Truth"
American Crime Journal, 2023 "OUR Quietly Exposes Tim Ballard’s Big Lie"
